The World (And Future) Of Raf Simons

The Belgian fashion designer Raf Simons lives, at least part of the year, above a flower shop in one of the fancier arrondissements of Paris. His apartment is one of those expected parquet-floored affairs with carved boiseries painted chalk-white, filled with contemporary art. There’s a George Condo painting that makes the sitter look like Beaker from ‘‘The Muppet Show,’’ hung in a space once occupied, perhaps, by a 19th-century academic oil. There are good Picasso ceramics on a gray marble mantelpiece. An old house, filled with something new. That, and all the flowers, are a neat metaphor for Dior, the fashion house Simons designed for until last October, when, in a surprising turn, he resigned as artistic director of women’s wear. There, Simons disrupted, bringing modern references and even modern art into the storied couture maison. Then, after three and a half years, he was gone. Read more at The New York Times.